We're not desperate. Really. We have a reporting position open and we have some good applications in hand.

But one thing we don't have enough of: Qualified applications from Maine natives, or people who went to high school here, and want to live in central Maine and work as a reporter at the Kennebec Journal or Morning Sentinel. Why is that? We produce two fine daily newpapers, which we think are getting better. Our Web site just was voted best in New England for newspapers of 40,000 circulation or below. Our company is an excellent employer. We offer competitive salaries and every benefit you could ask for — health care, eye and dental care, a 401k run by Fidelity, weekly overtime. Etc.

Sometimes, in reader comments, in e-mails or in comments at other Web sites that I browse occasionally, there will be criticisms that we don't hire enough Mainers —young journalists from this area, Maine journalism-school graduates, people from here who perhaps work at smaller daily newspapers or weeklies. I get asked about this when I speak in public sometimes. My answer: I'd love to hire more Mainers, and in fact we do hire people like this more than you might think. (Recent copy-desk hires Lucas Knowles and Andy Nagy are from Winthrop and Gardiner. Scott Martin, our new sports editor, grew up in Naples.)

But not enough Maine journalists and journalism students apply here. Nor did they at the Portland Press Herald, where I worked as an editor for more than 10 years. I just don't see as many applications from the University of Maine, U-Maine Farmington, University of Southern Maine and the state's fine, literary private schools as I'd like. I will make it a personal priority in the coming year to "reach out" to professors at these schools, encouraging them to send students our way, though it seems obvious that they should.

But for now, if you know young journalists like this — or know someone who does — please, give them my name. We'd do better with more of them.